Three Queens pronounced outstanding success

THE Three Cunard Queens event has been officially certified as one of Merseyside’s most successful free events, with people travelling from across the world to see it.

An independent report has revealed that 1.2 million  people gathered along the Liverpool, Wirral and Sefton waterfronts, bringing in £32.9m to the regional economy.

The visitors came to the city from Saturday May 23 until Tuesday May 26 as part of the Three Queens spectacular. This included the arrival of Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth who met for the first time on the Mersey and the Amazing Graces projections which illuminated Liverpool’s waterfront in unforgettable style.

The research, commissioned by Liverpool City Council and carried out by North West Research, is based on interviews with hundreds of people and found the economic impact on each areas was: Liverpool £29.1m and Wirral and Sefton £3.8m.

On average, each visitor spent £27, 48% of visitors were from outside the city region while 6 % of visitors came from oversees including locations such as North America, New Zealand and Ireland.

The most popular visitors were day trippers at 58%. Some 38% of all visitors stayed over for at least one night – the average length of stay was 3.4 nights.

The spending analysis found that on average day trippers spent £34.27 per person and staying visitors from the North West spent £138.07 per person.

Staying visitors from the rest of the UK spent £359.09 per person and staying overseas visitors spent £427.66 per person.

Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson, said: “Anyone who was lucky enough to experience any of the Three Queens event knew that it was a special moment not only in this city’s history, but in Merseyside’s history.

“The build-up to the event was unprecedented and there was a real sense across the region that we were about to be part of something truly unforgettable.”

Anna Rees, North West Research Manager, Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), said:  “The results of the economic impact report show how the Three Queens event made a significant positive contribution to the local visitor economy, with spend coming into the area from across the UK and overseas. Positive results also came from the visitor satisfaction questions, with almost all respondents likely to return to Liverpool in the future.

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